Why Joe The Surreal Plumber Is More Important Than You...

Who is Joe The Plumber ?

Apparently he's a registered GOP voter who won't pay his taxes whose real name is actually Sam...

He blames America for destroying his American Dream...





He is a bald beefy white guy in Ohio...his name is actually Samuel J Wurzelbacher, and I'm guessing that means he doesn't likely hang out with many elite black guys, or any Harvard law school graduates... or even union plumbers in his hometown who say he isn't one of them.

But Joe/Sam likes attention

And he also wants to be rich, and somehow thinks Obama's hypothetical tax plan is the one thing stopping him... it's just sad.

Joe thinks if he has to pay 3% more in taxes on a small potential percentage of his income that's actually apt to go over $250,000 a year... well
it's gonna break his white balls...

The very thought of it is destroying his American Dream!!

He actually said so to that blowhard Cavuto on Fox!!

Now he plans to blow off his "buddy" McCain at an Ohio rally to appear on some Sunday TV chat shows.

WHO IS 'JOE THE PLUMBER'?



John McCain made Joe the centerpiece of the debate last night...

It all started when earlier this week, Wurzelbacher got on camera at an Obama rally in Toledo.

Joe told the uppity candidate that he felt Obama's tax plan was gonna keep him down, that if he started making over $250 G's a year and Obama kicked up his taxes on dough above $250 G a few percentage points... life wouldn't be worth living anymore.

It's enough to make a big bad bald white guy whine like a little girl...

It makes me ask...

Why is Obama trying to keep the hard working white man down?

I mean really...

Poor old Joe The Plumber, if Obama wins, his joy of buying the plumbing business would evaporate like piss in the plumbers ass crack wind.

Joe normally would pay the 36% tax rate, if he paid his taxes, which would remain in effect, if he paid his taxes, but in the hypothetical event Joe makes more than $250 G he would hypothetically pay a new rate, but only on any amount above the $250k.

So if he made $290 hypothetical G's, he'd pay 3% more on the $40 grand he made above the $250 taxed at the base rate...



Note: that's way less than Joe would pay in Europe or Canada as a matter of a fact...

But the point is...

that's life...millions of us do it...

except ol ' Joe/Sam who feels he's above that...

Boo F-Ing White Man Hoo, Needs to Buy a HD Tv or something.. and that $300 extra dollars is killing him.

What is Joe's deal, is he the new Wesley Snipes?

Maybe it's because Joe The Plumber hates the US government, or maybe he doesn't support the war, or our Wall St bailout...

but assuming he makes another $40,000 a year over $250 at his old rate...

So his total burden would maybe be about $1200 new bucks in taxes over his old rate, as opposed to a more nominal $900...

uh...

big f-n whoop...

get over it... It's like $300 dollars!!!!!!

whatever Joe's hatred of paying his fair share
... I could give a shit





I just assume Joe The Plumber hates America...



or at least it's various

uh, "tax brackets".

Former Fat Boys I Ain't Gonna Pay My Taxes


Psycho Realm - Tax Evaders



He feels he should get to keep paying his old tax rate...

despite his pal George Bush running up the biggest deficit ever...

good for both of them and John McCain too...

I hope Joe The Plumber is pissed off...

I hope he cries in his corn flakes every morning that he was born in America

Maybe Joe can join with Bill Ayres and bomb bomb bomb the Pentagon...


I'm glad he's offended at the thought of paying into the big fed pool...

God forbid a small 3% percentage upgrade on his amount above $250 G than he already is supposed to pay gets into Obama's dirty hands...

Joe The Plumber Wurzelbacher (pronounced whur-zell-BAHK-er) told USA Today that hearing his tale during the debate was

"It's pretty surreal, man, my name being mentioned in a presidential campaign,"

As for McCain, according to Joe "He's got it right as far as I go."

Fuck them...

they're both losers

I gott say at this point I agree with McCain's ousted economic advisor who said a few months ago

They're Whiners

The country doesn't need 'em...

Obama already has it in the bag... he's yer new plumber... get used to it...



Klunko Plumbers Crack

Reactorzero -
Party In The Plumber Kingdom


Greg The Plumber -
Tips on Hiring a Plumber

Big Joe Turner - Call The Plumber

Erase Errata - Tax Dollar

Climate Change Is Causing Me To Lose Sleep

Excuse the brevity but I have to get out the door here as the dawn comes...

I'm losing sleep due to climate change, or so it would seem...

Today is the start of a two day Climate Change shindig I'm involved with. Beginning at 8 am there's a group of esteemed panelists & professors from all over who'll be laying out strategies for emissions reductions, from legal, scientific & political perspectives.

Folks speaking and attending run the gamut of NGO's and Institutions, University of London, Earth Institute, World Bank, Pew Center and even our marquee name brand Mayor whose pet project is photo ops where he is pictured being the "eco dude".

I'm just the roadie, videographer and wacky web monkey who'll be helping out with seemingly stupid tasks like changing the batteries in the wireless mics, and getting the internet stream up so people can tune in on potentially a global level.

Live Audio Webcast of the "Surviving Climate Change" Conference
http://peace.str3am.com:6360/listen.pls
Use this link if you would like to listen to the conference through winamp, real audio or other software. The audio streams live. Thursday it will begin at 8:45am PST and end at 5:30 pm PST. On Friday it will begin at 9:00am PST and end 3:00pm PST.

The Keynote Speakers at the conference include:

• San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom
• Mary Nichols, Chair of the California Air Resources Board

All this while half a world away, the real players are in attendance at the current round of United Nations climate change talks with reps from 163 nations that got underway on Monday in Bangkok. There so-called "Third World" African Nations are demanding a portion of 1st World GDP be set aside for them to combat the effects of climate change.

So instead of being out til 2:30 like last night watching Evolution Control Committee and Fluff Girl rock a St.Stupid's Day after party...

Dan Rather vs Evolution Control Committee vs AC/DC - Rocked By Rape

Evolution Control Committee vs PE vs Herb Alpert- Rebel Without A Pause

Tonight I was home well before midnight!

That's pretty good for a guy that usually gets to sleep as the birds are waking!

Of course it doesn't mean I'm sleeping...hence this half ass blog post fer y'all...


Since I'm tapped out, I'll just let Barack Obama tell ya what he thinks ...or who he thinks should think for him...



Anyhow...
In honor of all the hoopla for Climate Change here's a few tracks fer y'all...
All a lil' too cute,( unlike Climate Change)

Blubird - What If We Don't Want To Be Warm

Tom Ze - Companheiro Bush

KPBS News - Climate Change In Popular Culture



Here's one more bonus song as we salute the airlines contributions to climate change ...

Elmore James - The Sky Is Crying

Sunday Scrapbook : Political Soundclashes & Video Freeware

Hmmm....

Looks like the most recent returns show Barack Obama with Hilary backed into a corner, and the Clinton's are rearranging the deck chairs...

---

Tonight is the increasingly irrelevant spectacle of the Grammy awards...

As if to prove this, here's actual nominees the Shins doing the "Boy-Band" photo op thing, ...




The awards are not even immune from primary fever, and somehow presidential aspirant Barack Obama was a Grammy winner, again...

It's his second audio book, and his second Grammy award winner...

The Audacity of Hope

by Barack Obama

Download all 6 hours and 10 minutes of his ranting by clicking the pic at eMusic







I hear Amy Winehouse, who has 6 nominations, will be appearing via satellite...

and she apparently won something already...





I think I may just skip on over to the Rickshaw Stop here in SF to catch Bedouin Soundclash instead...

I was always partial to this version of "Waiting For My Ruca" on the Sublime tribute album "Look At All The Love That We Found" awhile back...

Bedouin Soundclash - Waiting For My Ruca

Here's a couple more from 'em

They are on a trek through the US this month, so keep yer eyes peeled kids


Bedouin Soundclash - When The Night Feels My Song

Bedouin Soundclash - Gyasi Went Home

both of these last two songs songs were from their 2004 release "Sounding A Mosaic", they have a 2007 release called "Street Gospels" but I didn't have any of that handy...

---

When I have a minute, I've been messing about with some video editing lately...

here's a couple recent vids I've posted on the You Tube fer yer enjoyment...

This one is a mini-doc on my pal Kal...

He's a San Francisco based founder of kinetic pyro performance pranksters The Seemen. Beginning with a clip shot in Austin TX from Richard Linklater's cult classic "Slacker", we enter Kal's offbeat artistic world. Enjoy some interviews and footage from the late 1990's of Kal's SRL inspired interactive fire spewing toys from "Machines for Removing Desires". There's a bit ofan interview with Dana King on "CBS Eye to Eye with Connie Chung", and even an obscure Russian TV show.

I guess the Russian tv show is obscure to me, but some 5 million people saw this when it aired.

You'll basically get a glimpse of the man, his machines and bits of the philosophy behind his performances. Footage includes interviews from his Butchertown live/workspace and The Lab. It runs about 7 minutes I think...




I have a love hate relationship with video editing...

It's oft a tedious, time consuming process, and generally no matter the computer I attempt to muck about with, the processing power can be lacking, and my Adobe software isn't the latest version...but I'll be damned if I'm gonna go dump a few more G's to keep up.

Whenever I do, I get outmoded just as fast...

But I recently came across a little freeware solution, that does some basic stuff for those that would like to make a go of it without spending $4-$5 grand like I did stupidly a few years ago...

Here's a little app for cutting up files quickly that was just released

Free-Video-Dub.htm

anyhow

I've got a lot of stuff to do tonight

see ya

consent decree and happiness for thee

So as everybody knows that cares by now... Eddie Van Halen has joined Britney Spears and SF mayor Gavin Newsom and Lindsay Lohan in announcing his rehab.

Only thing is he's got a least two decades of boozing experience on all of 'em...

jeez dude... took ya minute to figure that shit out eh?

I thought Michael Anthony was the whiskey sodded troublemaker... you know with the Jack Daniels shaped bass guitar. But apparently he's been booted in favor of Eddie's kid...

Sad...

So, whatever... we get no classic VH reunion tour ,or even mini performance at the lame Rock n Roll Hall of Fame ceremony. Nope... nothing, just my luck...

Instead, I hear Genesis are regrouping for a summer shed tour...

Sadly I bet that Phil Collins dude is more fun to hang around than Eddie anyway...he's at least got more common sense...

Genesis - Turn It On Again live

With that scariness out of the way...

I suppose my best bet for live music satisfaction for the foreseeable future will be the Legendary Stardust Cowboy and Hank IV down at "your dive", El Rio in San Francisco on Saturday night.

It'll be my second weekend in a row catching the endearingly monikered Klaus Flouride ripping it up on stage, this time with the Legendary Stardust Cowboy... aka The Ledge.

Norman Carl Odam is a bit of a character apparently, a sci-fi rockabilly cowboy kingpin that has to be seen to be believed i suppose. The Wild West version of Wesley Willis...or something like that.




Legendary Stardust Cowboy - Paralyzed

Legendary Stardust Cowboy - My Underwear Froze to The Clothesline

bonus

New York Night Train's Oral History Project: Kid Congo Powers Remembers The End of The Gun Club, and working with the total kook known as The Legendary Stardust Cowboy

Kid Congo - Oral History

Another legend of sorts on the bill is Bob McDonald... kind of our own local lush version of David Yow...

All you SXSW attendees can catch Bob with his band Hank IV at a couple opportunities in the coming week...

Mar 14 2007 midnight
SXSW! Showcase at Lava Lounge in Austin. Hank IV plays at midnight.
Mar 17 2007 3:30PM
Trophy's (Austin) for the WHOOPSY MAGAZINE PARTY. Hank IV plays at 3:30pm.

Here's a couple tracks from Hank IV's debut CD/LP that recently came forth via Hook Or Crook Records... I met one of the proprietors the other night, and he seemed like a swell fella, who has big plans for his little label, or at least for his bar tab. Look for these folks in Austin...

Hank IV - Tonight We Ride


hank IV - Got Got

In other music industry twitchings...

A settlement, or as the Hollywood Reporter called it "consent decree" has been reached with the FCC & corporate chain broadcasters over the investigation into corporate radio playlist payola. Looks like Clear Channel & pals are agreeing to pay $12.5 million to make the Federal Communications Commission's investigators to sort of just go away. The "pay for play" probe involved transactions between major labels & Clear Channel Communications Inc., CBS Radio Inc., Entercom Communications Corp. and Citadel Broadcasting Corp. Of course none of these large broadcasters will admit "wrongdoing", but as a group have simply agreed to pay a collective fine and dedicate a total of 8,400 half-hour segments to "independent music" over the next three years. The indie quota agreement is through some sort of mysterious private 2nd agreement made with the American Association of Independent Music.

The organization has about a 100 or so labels involved including Epitaph, Koch, Hopeless, Matador, Ninja Tune, Relapse and Putamayo...

Here's their board of directors who represent a bunch of labels, many I notice who've had distribution deals via majors. One board member is from Lookout Records, the label that stopped paying royalties to most of their bands awhile back including cash cow Green Day, and lost control of the Berkeley based band's lucrative back catalog a year ago.

Mmmm, that's leadership...

Glen Barros


Concord Music Group

glenb@concordrecords.com

Term Ends 2009

Lesley Bleakley


Beggars Group

lesleybleakley@beggars.com

Term Ends 2008

Peter Gordon


Thirsty Ear Recordings

peter@thirstyear.com

Term Ends 2007

Steve Gottlieb


TVT Records

steve@tvtrecords.com

Term Ends 2008

Doug Keogh


Roadrunner Records

keogh@roadrunnerrecords.com

Term Ends 2007

Glenn Morrow


Bar/None Records

glenn@bar-none.com

Term Ends 2007

Molly Neuman


Lookout! Records

molly@lookoutrecords.com

Term Ends 2008

Thomas Silverman


Tommy Boy Records

tom.silverman@tommyboy.com

Term Ends 2009

Amaechi Uzoigowe


Definitive Jux

acu@definitivejux.net

Term Ends 2009

Read an LA Times' story on the FCC probe by Jim Puzzanghera here. Of course known music biz ranter Bob Lefsetz has an opinion too...

Speaking of settlements & leadership...

Commander in chief wannabee Barack Obama finally paid his parking tickets... ones he got while attending Harvard Law School -- 17 years ago. He had racked up $140 in fines and Obama's decade+ worth of late fees tallied another $260. The Somerville (Mass.) News published the story Wednesday.

So now we know how quickly the man can get things done, and that he truly respects & believes in the rule of law. Like, Totally Presidential Dude...

or at least like every other broke ass dude driving a bucket around here...

I know that Hollywood likes to tell us their industry is a gamble, and downloading & home copying and bootlegger's etc are all hurting bottomlines...but somehow the Motion Picture Association of America released figures showing Americans spent $9.49 billion on movies. That's about 1.45 billion tickets sold, 63 films grossing more than $50 million and Disney's Johnny Depp franchise sequel "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" -- made $400 million.

Psychologist's say that owning a piece of a $400 million film might not make ya happy. Actually psychologists don't even call it happiness, they call it "subjective well-being" and a new study says it's all relative. Long term studies captured levels of life satisfaction both prior to and after major life events like marriage, divorce, unemployment and illness or disability. What they found was that basically some people get bummed out easier than others...

No shit sherlocks...

Source:newsroom.msu.edu/site/indexer/3014/content.htm

Busdriver - Happiness ('s Unit of Measurement)


Just saw that an old friend of mine is currently on tour on the East Coast, so if yer nearby you might wanna check out Mat Callahan w/Yvonne Moore. Callahan was a regular rabble rouser of sorts out here in the Bay Area for many years.

In the 70's he had a political folk group called Prairie Fire, and after that an innovative world beat band called The Looters. They were the first US group invited to perform by new Sandinista President Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua. They recorded discs for Alternative Tentacles, Island records and even Monster Cable's label Monster Music.

Mat helped start a musical collective in the Mission called Komotion International, that held benefit shows, and then permutated into a record label and a magazine we all ran together for about ten years.

He eventually split for Switzerland but I see is going to be back with his new musical partner Yvonne Moore and are doing dates with political folkie David Rovics. He has an album out currently called Wild Bouquet, that features some of his talented pals backing him up including Brain (Tom Waits, Guns & Roses) on drums, Joe Gore (P.J. Harvey) on guitar, Les Claypool (Primus) on bass and singer Zoe Ellis. It was recorded partly in San Francisco, and his new home near Lake Geneva in Mauer, Switzerland.

Here's some Mat Callahan tracks & tourdates

Mat Callahan - Jonny Refused

Mat Callahan - Deep Down

March 10 • Brooklyn, NY
Vox Pop

March 11 • Willimantic, CT
Wrench in the Works • 7 pm

March 12 • Boston, MA
Berklee College of Music

March 15 • New Haven, CT

March 16 • Dunkirk, MD

March 17 • Washington, DC
Fleming Center • 7 pm

March 18 • Norfolk, VA
40th Street Stage

March 20 • New York
Googie's Lounge above The Living Room •

March 23 • Hartford, CT
La Paloma Sabanera
Indy Media Group Show

March 24 • New York
Banjo Jim's • 8:00 pm

Currently Mat's label Broken Arrow are offering a free 4 song EP of Mat & Yvonne with each order while supplies last...hey it's deal !

Speaking of deals... and guys who refuse to cut one with the Feds...

The Feds are still keeping harmless blogger Josh Wolf languishing in prison...

While SF violent crimes spin out of control, and even more real criminals are in Washington, Wolf has done 6 months hard time. I bet Scooter Libby gets way less than that.

Josh Wolf offered to show the video tapes to the judge in chambers, without the prosecutors present. Judge & system though really just want to send a message and hope the kid rots. The Feds routinely spit on all our freedoms, look at the beady eyes on that pudgy smug Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and you learn everything you'd ever need to know about American Justice.

Nothing new here... Ironically despite Wolf's incarceration, this kid will do well once he is finally released... He's a Gen Y kid who now has more credibility going for him than the entire system run by suck up Baby Boomer generation reps that are coming down on him like a ton of worthless bricks.

Wolf didn't burn the mattress, break the tail light, organize the demonstration or smack the cop...and says he doesn't have any footage of the cop getting hit. But he is paying the price for all of that, and most importantly, for sticking up for his right not to be an informant. On the streets they call informants a "snitch"...

In real street crime cases, its a known fact that if you snitch ... then you die...

That's just a fact of life, on SF streets or any urban area.

It's why Lil Kim did time last year...because she wasn't a snitch.

Lil' Kim - Bad Girl

Would the SFPD offer to protect such a kid like Wolf if he did snitch out, or reveal who did what? That's a big rhetorical no.

The cops have no credibility for helping out their informants. Many are hung out to dry, get no protection and too many have died here in SF...

Even if he wasn't making a point as some sort of political martyr, he'd be wiser not to help the SFPD. Many of those who offered are dead...

In interest of justice & restoring order, Ive tried to help SFPD on occasions and have been regretful of it everytime. Those piglets won't appreciate you trying to help them, and they'll turn on you, leaving nothing but grief in return for your assistance. The cops total lack of professionalism amazes me. No wonder SF streets are sinking into a sea of swill...

Peter Plate - Snitch Factory

and that's all I got for now...

Shotwell - San Francisco's Withering

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